The show moved on to Harewood House near Leeds for 7-8 August and the Saturday night saw Will Young play to a capacity audience of over 16,000 eager fans. The show used Outline's Butterfly Line Array and a full 20-way stage mix which used Outline's H.A.R.D 212 monitors.
The front-of-house system consisted of 16 Outline CDH483 mid/high packs per side and 16 Outline 'Victor' live sub-basses (eight per side), the whole system powered by Outline TP 6.5 PWM digital amplifiers and controlled by Lake Contour system processors. Sigma AV Ltd, contracted as total system provider, supplied the system to the SRD Group. Stuart Roberts of SRD has been evaluating many systems over the last year and confirmed: "I approached Peter [Barnard, Outline UK and Sigma AV] to see if we could evaluate the Butterfly, as I'd heard it at the Hammersmith Apollo demo in London the previous October and was impressed, but needed to hear it, see it, fly it etc in the real world. The most refreshing thing was we had to pay for it! Yes - a proper daily/weekly rate! This makes me feel confident that if and when we purchase our own line array, we will be able to hold our heads high and say we bought it because we liked it and it protects my investment."
The system performed its task faultlessly and both UK and US engineers were impressed by the power and clarity the Butterfly achieved, says Barnard. The size and weight of the Butterfly provide further advantages: each high pack, including its flying mechanism, weighs in at a minimal 35kg. Three highs are transported in a flightcase, which preserves the cabinets and flying mechanisms and also assists in the easy flying of Butterfly.
Peter Barnard, owner of Sigma AV, commented: "We have been evaluating the Lake Contour processors for number of months, both myself and my system technician Ian Barfoot agree that the Contour has infinite EQ possibilities. We used the system via a tablet PC, which was connected to the Lake processors via a wireless connection, allowing Ian to continually monitor the audio performance anywhere in the audience area. A prediction was completed using Outline's VIP (Vector Implementation Protocol) software and data was stored into the Lakes. SIA SMAART's latest version also 'talks' with the Lakes, so real-time analysing, together with system monitoring, are always available - anywhere!"
At Harewood House, the VIP was used to predict the array angles and height the Butterfly highs would be trimmed at. After setting the level at 100dB at the sound tower, a sound pollution investigation was conducted. After the investigation it was decided to bury the HF at 147m from the stage to avoid pollution problems. Audio level was recorded at the perimeter of the venue at 53dB; the distance from the stage was 1.67km with 12dB headroom available.
To assist technicians and engineers, Outline has established its training and information courses, which will include theory and implementation of Outline's present and future line array technologies and instruction and qualification in Outlines VIP software. The qualification carries the acronym of VIPER (Vector Implementation Protocol Engineer Registered).
(Lee Baldock)
